The State Department, responding to reports that the Geneva conference on the Middle East may resume its activities early in the new year, has declined to indicate when a session may be held. “It is up to the parties to decide when it will he useful to return to. Geneva,” Department spokesman Robert Ander-son said. “We are perfectly prepared to return to Geneva when the parties decide to do so.”
The Soviet-American communique issued in Vladivostok last week after President Ford and Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev had met, called for resumption of the Geneva conference as soon as possible. The United States, eager to continue its step-by-step negotiations in the area, opposes a Geneva session until additional bilateral actions are taken. Israel shares that view. The Soviet Union, however, would like to terminate the bilateral moves. Parties to the Geneva conference are the two superpowers, Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
GENEVA PARLEY ON KISSINGER-ALLON AGENDA
It is understood that among the topics for the meeting here Dec. 9 between Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Israeli Foreign Minister Yigal Allon is the Geneva parley and an exchange of views on the Palestine Liberation Organization that is reportedly demanding to enter the conference as a participant along with the other six.
Kissinger indicated today that he will continue his efforts toward a Middle East settlement in stages when he meets Allon. After briefing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kissinger told reporters, “We will continue our efforts in an attempt to produce step-by-step progress to peace in the Middle East.”
Allon’s meetings in Washington will be followed by a visit by Egyptian Foreign Minister Is-mail Fahmy. Kissinger is expected to try to achieve a compromise between Egyptian demands for further military disengagement in Sinai and Israel’s insistence on concrete political concessions from Egypt in exchange for any new withdrawals.
Some surprise was occasioned at the State Department when it was disclosed that Undersecretary of State Joseph J. Sisco, who has been closely identified with the Middle East for six years, will not attend the meeting with Allon. Sisco will be in Iceland Dec. 8-11 on other matters.
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